


I Am Na'el

by Keenir



Category: Noah (2014)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 18:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1697597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ham first met Na'el in a pit.  This is why - part of her story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Na'el

**Author's Note:**

> _"Her name was Na'el. She was innocent. She was good."_ -Ham.

I am Na'el, of the eleventh generation to descend from the patriarch Cain the son of Adam whom was created.

My mother and brother died as we followed the great scaled beasts - serpents and monitors - and Grandfather and I bound and wrapped the remains of my brother and mother, with neither time nor resources to dig a proper pit for them, with me shouldering much of their boneweight (bones being that which is of value, as it was bones which made Eve). This settlement here, lorded by Tubal-Cain (a fellow descendant of Cain) personally, is as makeshift as anything I have beheld. I have heard talk that this place is a waystation to ready men for battle against a fortress lorded over by Noah (son of Lamech, descendant of Seth). We took housing in the best ramshackle residence we could, the weight of Grandfather's name still currency despite how far the fortunes of his family had fallen since his heyday.

With only me remaining in his company - Father and Uncles having perished of plague before setting out after the scaled beasts - Grandfather died that night. "I've lost too much," he breathed in his last moments. Our neighbors, makeshift as this place is, helped me with the wrappings and bindings of Grandfather. And then they stood back to permit me the dignity of taking my family to the pit myself. I slide the three of them in, never letting go. I don't want to let go, though I know I have to, though...

I have a choice, as did Eve, the foremother of us all. I have a choice, as did she who took Cain as a husband in the land of Nod.

And there I stand, one hand upon Grandfather's sheltered brow, one upon mother's. I am the last withered bit of our twig off the great tree which is the Line of Cain. I could go, marry someone here in Tubal-Cain's settlement. I am too tired to make a name for myself, and I have none near me. But I am healthy, and can be the soil for future generations, as were my ancestresses. My name could be as strong and prominent as was my Grandmother's.

Or I can remain in here, drawing no eyes, earning no attention, until my end comes. I cannot die of a broken heart as Grandfather did, but I can still die. And with me, the sickly twig will at least at last be ended.

I stay. One day. The noise of mankind is a din, a droning babble to my ears.

Two days.

It is on the third day that a boy - man - my age - slips down into the pit. He comes with nothing dead, so it is not duty that moves him to be here.

Is he thinking to pluck me up and haul me to where he lays? More fool him if that is so. I will strike him dead-as-abel and leave him to putrify, to impurify without any wrappings, without bindings.

But he does nothing, least of all anything which might strike one as being of hostile intent. He is more afraid...afraid of me, afraid of the noise of humanity above us, afraid of the dead around us. He makes no sense, and I can start to bring myself to consider what might have brought him here.

Were I alone with my family and the other dead, I could bear the silence such as it is. But now, with company of another who like me draws breath... I ask him, "Are you alone?"

"I am," he says. "And you?"

I look to my family. What more could I say than that?


End file.
